Treasury buckles to pressure and gives the Council of Trade Unions and other groups accreditation to attend the Budget lock-up

Treasury Secretary Iain Rennie was asked by Finance Minister Nicola Willis to broaden the list of attendees to the Budget lock-up. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Treasury has changed its tune at the last minute and given a handful of organisations the green light to attend next week’s Budget lock-up.

The move follows a legal threat and public scrutiny over why organisations that had previously been allowed to see embargoed Budget documents, were now barred.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis told the Herald that having received feedback from a range of people over Treasury narrowing who it let into the lock-up, she yesterday asked Secretary to the Treasury Iain Rennie to change his approach.

While the groups that had been denied access welcome the revision, some are scratching their heads over why Treasury gave business-affiliated groups accreditation before it did the same for the Council of Trade Unions.

Business New Zealand, the New Zealand Initiative and the Taxpayers’ Union were emailed by Treasury last night, saying they could attend the May 22 Budget lock-up at the Beehive.

However, the Council of Trade Unions was only given the okay this morning, after it challenged Treasury, and the “right wing” organisations came in to bat for their “left wing” friend out of principle.

The New Zealand Initiative’s Eric Crampton told Treasury he would only accept the invitation on the condition the Council of Trade Unions’ Craig Renney was accredited too.

Earlier yesterday, a lawyer for the Taxpayers’ Union sent Treasury a letter saying it would file an application for judicial review if Treasury didn’t “urgently” reconsider the group’s application to attend the lock-up, and respond by Friday.

The lawyer claimed declining the Taxpayers’ Union’s application was a breach of its legal rights.

Willis said her decision to contact Treasury wasn’t swayed by the legal threat.

A Treasury spokesman told the Herald the department had received “a significant amount of feedback” on its approach towards lock-up attendance, which was the same process it used at its economic and fiscal update in December 2024.

“In acknowledgement of that feedback and in consultation with the Minister of Finance’s office, we have decided to accept a broader range of stakeholders,” the spokesman said.

Journalists and analysts are typically allowed to attend the Budget lock-up. The idea is that they go into a big hall at the Beehive and have a few hours to dissect the finance minister’s Budget and Treasury’s economic and fiscal update, and prepare reports ahead of the embargo lifting and the documents being made public.

Economists from banks and consultancy firms are among the “analysts” who attend.

The Treasury spokesman explained, “While we are not able to accommodate everyone who registered their interest, all Budget information will be publicly available from 2pm on Thursday 22 May on the Budget website.”

Willis said she was proud of the Budget and welcomed organisations, including the unions, judging it on its merits.

Jenée Tibshraeny is the Herald‘s Wellington business editor, based in the parliamentary press gallery. She specialises in government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.